Nothing to see here

Saturday, April 24, 2010

I'm curious as to the origins of those choosing "the voices" in my poll. What did they say? Were they friendly? Did they use sock puppets or other non-threatening props in their dialogue? Can they explain to me why the preacher's son replied to my last (and very standard) sign-off "I love you" with "Thank you"?

I yearn to be held, but I'm ashamed to assert my existence.

NB- He's got a nice little life together for himself. I could only serve to damage it, I'm sure. He has girl children of a very impressionable age. It would be very selfish of me to push this, although I suppose I owe him an explanation. Here's hoping he figures out where to find it.

Friday, March 19, 2010

After an online friend lamented the lack of boob shots that she felt my "18 and Over" warning promised, I thought I'd better explain.

Although this blog and the links provided are appropriate (and necessary) for some younger viewers/readers, I wanted to convey that some of the situations/events narrated within deal graphically with "R"-rated matter- sex, drugs, death, serious mental illness, and- occasionally- even POLITICS. (By their very nature most of my posts touch on something-or-other political, but it's the "Dear Obama"-type crap that merits a warning).

Speaking frankly, as I am often too apt to do, age is not a defining characteristic of my target readership. There are people in their 60's who may never have the stomach for my subject matter. Some of us never quite grow comfortable enough to chat casually about sex, there is certainly a large contingent of those lacking any sense of humor about mental illness, and there are more unfortunate souls walking the earth who cannot forgive themselves for their past transgressions, nor can they forgive their transgressors.

Those whose view of the sanctuary is terminally obstructed by visions of sin will have to seek truth elsewhere.

For the remainder, I invite you to debate/ suggest/ just check in and PAY ATTN TO ME as we all work towards becoming our own best selves. And stumble. And push on.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

On Valentine's Day I got an unexpected voicemail- from a long lost surviving member of the Northern Florida surfing gothic hippie crew. Actually, he was probably the first (new) person I met upon landing in the swamp in 1994 with whom I actually wanted to spend time. I met him when we both auditioned for a play and were cast as partners-in-mischief and (perhaps, I don't quite recall) even brothers. Of course shortly after rehearsals commenced, I met the FairyGodFaggot (who sprinkles sparkle dust on me from an adjacent plane as of November 2006, raise hell in death brother) who was, like me, cast across gender as a goofy old fortune-telling Gypsy. It felt like I had joined on with a psychedelic 3 Musketeers that summer.

The truly uncustomary thing for me- having grown up in the North- was that both of them were really chivalrous- southern gentlemen, as much as a couple of 18 year old boys in fishnets and eye makeup could be (Which, I suspect, is probably a bit more gentlemanlike than your average unadorned adolescent boy) They paid, they brought the wine and grapes, so to speak.

Partner-In-Crime guy actually did my makeup and cut my hair for me, when I was still stoically in denial about my bisexuality and far too dykish to even attempt those skills. He also regularly woke up at 4:30AM to borrow a car to drive me to work at AMOCO. (Here, "regularly" is a word meaning "for 3 and a half weeks until I got canned"). My Fairy Godfaggot dressed me up with fabulous textiles and cast off rings and bailed me out of jail and made me multiple mixed CDs. Partner-in-crime guy, on the other hand, wound up stealing a hideous heirloom opal ring from me* and my Dead Milkmen tapes when he fled up North (with his traditional zero notice). Of course, Fairy Godfaggot was far from perfect, as he had a terrible drinking-and-going-home-with-strangers-abandoning-me habit.

Generally speaking, I maintained a warmer relationship with FGF (who I'll refer to as Pryncess Xanax from here on out). Women and combustibly gay men often mate for life, and while I know he had friends out the french horn who all adored him, I have it in writing that I was one of his top 10 most favorite people in the world. I was his pet hippie and he was my, well- not to put too fine a point on it-my pet faggot. But after I moved, we strayed. I become essentially too depressed to tolerate. But I guess he one-upped me there, pulling the ultimate no-show at age 30.

Not as if the Preacher's Son (grandson, to be precise) was a cheap plastic consolation prize. Our relationship was different. I imagine part of it came from the natural intrigue a chick who (thinks she) is a lesbian holds for a young man. Another part of it, I'm sure, is that a diet high in cannabis with regular doses of LSD is key in maintaining that blissninnied-free-love state that had us all thinking it was a good idea to hitchhike across the country in March and sleep in the park in New Orleans. Further, the Preacher's Son actually introduced me to my very first Rainbow Gathering, a happening which profoundly affected the course of my life. . . until I blew it, of course, on booze and women. He was really quite generous, not even a bit of a chauvinist pig, broadened my world tremendously, and was a great sparring partner. . .

. . .Which really should have clued me in earlier. I mean, how do little boys and girls show affection for one another? Hell, I still have a certificate proclaiming me "Queen of the 'I Hate Tommy' Club" from kindergarten.

It seems he was also tricked into leaving Surfer Hippie paradise and now lives just a couple of (mid-sized, Midwestern) states away. And he decided to call me up on the 14th. And he's single, and still a cutie pie. Oh dear, watch me screw this one up within 48 hours of our reunion.

I've essentially had one "normal" sexual relationship in my life, because my preferences have led me to years of total asexuality broken up by a couple of mania-induced whirlwinds of sexual carnival tours. My ex-wife and I met at the tail end of one of those, and I always felt guilty about pulling a sexual bait-and-switch on her- towards the end as my sanity peeled away, so our sex life died after a long illness of acute loss of quality followed by ever-widening spans of behaving like roommates who sniped at each other, or childhood best friends who feel obligated to one another though they really have nothing upon which to base an adult relationship.

Who knows, though? Perhaps we'll just reignite that stiff upper-lipped justfriendship accessorized with a slice of cold, gelatinized sexual tension on the side. And- what the hell- he is alive.

*C'mon, H.! What kind of a moron do you take me for? I soothed all my resentments by making hippie- dresses out of all your stuff, though.

First and Foremost! I want to disclaim that the situation you are about to read (about?) is not my fault. The place had shitty plumbing when I moved in- generally taking 3-4 flushes to quaff a modest amount of toilet paper. I never challenged it with female products, I quit feeding it paper towels long ago, and eventually put it on the "paperless diet". It's gotten to the point where I'm happy to see it even dilute my urine in a single flush. At any rate, now that we've clarified who the victim is here. . .

Never, ever, ever assume that all brands of drain opener are the same and thoroughly compatible. Apparently, while one major brand is made of hydrochloric acid (which begs the question of what use it is in declogging a major case of bulimic toilet), others are made out of sodium hypochlorite. Which may be a base, or it may actually be the same thing in colloquial chemistry-speak. Yeah, I don't know.

All I know is that I'm so paranoid about accidentally creating a chemical bomb that I hadn't dranoed my bathtub in a year fearing the implications of hydrochloric acid mixing with any lingering molecules of dried on clean shower spray, or- god forbid- soap scum.

I finally got around to tackling my own stagnant drains when I found myself still standing in yellow water at the end of my shower and several weeks after I quit my first-world habit of trying to flush toilet paper down the loo. Hell, I even tried limiting my butter consumption It seemed to alleviate the issue to some degree, but frankly I feel that the goodness of real butter cannot be measured in plumber's labor hours.

Since I became semi-obsessed with household accidents (and germ transmission) a year or so ago, I had no fewer than three 1/2 to 7/8 used jugs of "U-bend Blaster," "Theta Pi Omega's Party Punch Concentrate" and "Facelift Strength Formula". As I recall, I used one in the shower and the content of the other two in the toilet. I must have lucked out and used the two compatible chemicals in the toilet.

Unfortunately, they didn't work. The water was still foamy with caustic goodness after many, many flushes and the dumping of much hot water. Eventually I had to break the cardinal rule against plunging a pipe full of caustic chemicals. I had to, though- see, I really had to pee and I didn't know how my sweet kidney juice would interact with the remaining drain-opening bubbles.

Unfortunately, this really has not resolved my problem. True, I can once more pee in the shower, but that's not always feasible. I don't think I can quite bring myself to defecate in the bathtub. Perhaps that should go directly into the plastic TP bag.

Monday, January 25, 2010

In my haste to grab anything sweet from the snacky-items aisle at the Asian grocery this weekend, I snapped up something that falls inexplicably under the category of "Only a Native Would Love. . ."

In my defense, there's got to be some way to impress on the importers that the semantic breadth of the American English cookie is not great enough to accommodate "shrimp powder" among its ingredients. Science marches forward?

Meanwhile, I'm stuck with a fairly large bag of "cookies" that taste distinctly like something one puts baking soda in the fridge to prevent.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

My hands went numb inside my "boxing" mittens inside my car when I went to deliver my rent check perhaps half an hour into sunset last night. I forgot to check the outdoor temp before I left the house, as I had just gotten up. (Yes, I'm a lazy ass good-for-nothing welfare queen.) (But I'm working on producing jewelry & patchwork stuff!)

At any rate, the heater ran virtually all night. I just turned it down from 74 degrees because it was clearly a hopeless task. Checked the National Weather Service site just now and found it is -6 degrees fahrenheit. 21 degrees below zero with the windchill. At that point, there's scarcely any difference between Celsius and Fahrenheit.